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Japan Subsidizes Linux Development, Considers Switch
TheAB writes "Japan is betting 50 million yen ($450k US) that the next-generation of high-tech products and computer networks will rely on open-source software. The money is to develop an 'operating system for consumer electronics goods'."
Japan plans to spend about 1 billion yen (US$8.3 million) funding Asian software developers working on the open-source Linux
This makes it sound like a certain win, but what is this about "betting?"
Tokyo has already budgeted 50 million yen (US$416,000) for next fiscal year to study the possibility of switching government computers to an open-source operating system.
So are they putting that upfront to see if it's worth it, with the $8.3 million conditional? It sounds exciting, but I don't want to hold my breath without clarification.
No I'm not trolling.
According to the article that's 50 million yen for Tokyo alone...for the whole of Japan it's closer a billion yen (8.3 million$).
In either case it's not that big of a sum, but any amount helps!
Reminder: find a new sig
Japan plans to spend about 1 billion yen (US$8.3 million)... working on the open-source Linux operating system for consumer electronics goods...
That might be a useful amount. Separately:
Tokyo has already budgeted 50 million yen (US$416,000) for next fiscal year to study the possibility of switching government computers to an open-source operating system.
So that's $8.3M for working on embedded Linux, and $416K for a study into looking at moving government computers to using Linux. "Government computers" is kind of a broad brush. Anyone know if that's servers, desktops, or really is just a general look?
I have heard of MS and other companies approaching the chinese government about their wide use of pirated software (in many cases the chinese themselves don't realize it's illegality) and faced with the option of buying huge amounts of expensive software, or moving to something open source, they are moving to Linux.
Or something...
" Japan plans to spend about 1 billion yen (US$8.3 million) funding Asian software developers working on the open-source Linux "
:-)
Why do that when you can just pull a Castle and steal it....
me karma am bad
It is the Japaese government that is spending the money, not "Japan". This may seem off-topic, but a country is different from its government. The amount Japan spends on Linux would be all the money all Japanese people and companies spend on Linux and Linux related things, not what the government did there. Governments are just another organisation and for most countries the main source of their problems.
Err... putting Japan and China in the same bag is akin to saying the U.S., Mexico and surrounding areas are all alike.
Besides, if you read the story, the entities mentioned are Ministries and two _very_ big corporations (Sony and Matsushita) - highly unlikely to be pirating software.
--Moo
Hmmmm....
At the risk of being obvious...
Linux is a stupendous 'operating system for consumer electronics goods' -- as an engineer who's developed embedded systems, I think that Linux is great for this purpose. For example, Tivo, which is Linux-based, is the greatest consumer electronic item of all time.
But $450k? Gee, what a commitment! That's like 2-3 full time people if you include overhead.
This kind of thing must be extremely worrying to Microsoft. All up all the developers working for governments around the world, and I bet there are about ten times as many as work for Microsoft. It's probably even more than that if you think about it.
Personally, I would love to be able to ssh into my refrigerator and poke around without having to get up and go all the way to the kitchen...
And imagine how cool you'll be with sendmail running on your air conditioner.
When they *finally* get around to getting that Gundam operational, it will run Linux!!!!!
Previous story here is on a company that did that. If Japan's encouraging the use of open source (and presumably GPL), what do they ship if they, for example, do an embedded linux port for a microwave? Do they ship a CD with the code with the microwave?
Geeze, if they did that, half the country would use the thing as the coaster, 49 percent would try and mu-wave the thing, and 1 percent (well, less...go with the idea here) would be left figuring how to do cool hacks on it.
According to the Bill Gates Net Worth Page they could hire him for over two hours with that kind of money...
As far as the government computers all they have to worry about is the software that runs on top of the OS, in fact most of the applications they would need access to are already available in one form or another. They can also get around any trouble from Microsoft. Even though they are probably not loosing any sleep over it now.
I can hardly wait! Now not only are we seeing various countries and governments using OSS, now we actually have backing. Okay, so maybe it's a very small amount of money in the grand scheme of things, but consider that this money goes directly (more or less) into the pockets of the people actually doing the work and not into vast amounts of overhead or to expiring license fees or any other such nonsense. An equal-sized fund given to Microsoft to create a project would buy far less... (for that matter, could end in the demise of the investor... don't mess with Microsoft or they'll find a way to cheat you in the end -- remember the cell phone company?)
I agree this is important--very important. And just MAYBE I can get the same level of Japanese lanugage functionality out of Linux that I do out of Microsoft products.
I hope Japan gets more than it paid for inspiring them and others to invest more into Linux in order to make more things happen.
On another note: Gotta love that RMS who has managed to create a way to keep people and companies from abusing free software. BSD gave the world a pretty decent TCP/IP implementation and Microsoft thanks them heartily. I hope it all remains as OSS and benefits the world -- I really *DO* want world peace.
Could the adoption of Linux go too quickly and be too widespread?
I know it seems a bit funny now, as it's still not very useful as a desktop environment and is going head-to-head with arguably better server software, but I think there's a menace lurking beneath the surface: companies may soon get to the point where they -expect- software to be produced for free. It's a bit ironic, I think, that the products of our success at programmers are in the position to undermine our ability to survive in our careers.
Already, programming jobs are being exported to places where they can be done almost for free. I'm starting to wonder if Linux and other open source projects are choking off what remains of our software economy. Is it too farfetched to think that some restrictions need to be put into place to protect workers?
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Microsoft Buys Japan
Wed Feb 5, 03:53 PM PT
Microsoft plans to spend about 1 billion dollars (120 billion Yen) funding Japan in its entirety, says Bill Gates, Wednesday.
Gates' plans on purchasing the country at the end of fiscal 2004, but he's not sure what to do with it. Industry pundits predict that Japan will go the way of WebTV and many other companies/countries purchased by Microsoft.
"I like Japan", says Gates, "they really are good at science". Later, Gates was seen snickering.
--naked
Very popular slashdot journal for adul
OK, let's think about this a moment. The current generation of networks and servers already hinges largely on Unix and Unix-like things (GNU/Linux). Linux is free, and many point out that Linux is mostly replacing Unix boxen at the moment.
Ipso facto, GNU/Linux will probably be a big part of the "next-generation" platform, whatever the foosh that actually refers to in practice.
But I guess what is interesting here is that they are broadcasting this "truth" and not, oh for example, signing up on some zany M$ initiative-of-the-week.
Someone actually pointed out in an earlier post (since modded into oblivion I can assume) that Asia pirates all their software so la-de-da. Which misses the point that Asia pirating software was always a good thing for the proprietary products. India is so awash in black market copies of Windows that they are practically addicts now, and still M$ gives them buckets of cash "donations" as soon as someone over there mumbles "Linux rulez" in his sleep.
=^..^= all your rodent are belong to us
Or is Japan producing/subsidizing everything that geeks like?
Last time I read a headline about Japan trying to predict the future computer trends, I tossed out my "C" books and wasted 6 months learning PROLOG.
I'd be surprised if there wasn't more piracy in the United States than Japan. I think one of the biggest problems in Japan is just getting the software. I recall reading an article about an American who started working in Japan and the huge headaches getting any software at all for the buisness he worked for, and how many hoops he had to jump through in order to even buy something direct from the US.
It's only a fleshwound, er, study.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Japan is betting...that the next-generation of high-tech products and computer networks will rely on open-source software.
The next generation?
As far as networks: The Internet is the most important network that I can think of, and what does it run on? Apache is the main Web server; I run a mail server with Qpopper and sendmail, of which the former is open source and the latter is at least free (is it open source? I don't even know); for the FTP part of serving, you can choose from Pure-FTPd, Pro-FTPd, wu-ftpd, or whatever else. "High-tech computer networks" of this generation already run on OSS.
As for products: There's a little more room for improvement here, but my PowerMac G4 is pretty damned high-tech, and while the GUI is closed, the core OS, Darwin, is open-source. And unlike Linux nerds who will say they have such-and-such a high tech system that's running OSS, mine came like this--right out of the box--and is a product targeted at, and sold mainly to, non-nerd consumers.
It used to be that I used very little software I paid for because I pirated everything; now I use very little software I paid for because it's free anyway, and for a substantial part of that software the source is available if I want it. Open source isn't a bet pertaining to the next generation, it's here already.
I found the meaning of life the other day, but I had write-only access.
well $450k is big enough to show that they're serious about the open source movement... dont think about how big or small they're betting on.. it's the thought that counts
Microsoft Exec: We're a bit worried that you guys are moving away from Windows.
Japanese president: There is nothing to worry about! We in Japan are all in awe of your large penis!
Microsoft Exec: What?!
Japanese president: You see, Japanese penis is so small!
Japanese vice-president: So small!
Japanese president: You Americans have such humungous-bungus penis!
Microsoft Execs: Well... that's true!
Japanese vice-president: Oh, such, a nice, big penis, American!
Japanese president: What can we possibly do with such small penis? We cannot take over your operating system with programmers of such masterdonic penis!
Microsoft Execs: Well, you've got a point there! That settles that! We're sorry for taking your time, gentlemen!
Japanese president: Oh, no! Thank you! Another chance to be in same room with big American penis!
Microsoft Execs (leaving): Nice guys!
TV announcer: And now, for a special announcement from the President of the United States.
George Bush: My fellow Americans, I wish to address the concerns many of us have over the growing number of Japanese Linux distributions in America's IT sector. The new Japanese Emperor Linus Hirohito has made our own children into programmers who will soon launch a DDOS attack against American military networks at Pearl Harbour. However, I spoke with Mr. Hirohito this morning and he assured me that I have a very large penis! He said it was dinosauric, and absolutely dwarfed his penis which he assured me was nearly microscopic in size. My penis, he said, was most likely one of the biggest on the planet. I applaud Mr. Hirohito in his honest. Thank you.
as I'm writing this from my zanussi-debian refridgerator.
<B>note to self:</B> <I>post as html</I>
It says right in the article (did you read it?) that "Japan plans to spend about 1 billion yen (US$8.3 million) funding Asian software developers working on the open-source Linux operating system for consumer electronics goods, an official said Wednesday." That is a sizable commitment.
The $450k figure in the article comes from this: " Tokyo has already budgeted 50 million yen (US$416,000) for next fiscal year to study the possibility of switching government computers to an open-source operating system." Note, that's the city of Tokyo, not the Japanese government.
Read the article.
People buy the CD because maybe they don't have the bandwidth to download 1+ gigs. Maybe they can't afford a CD burner. Maybe they don't have an operating system to begin with.
It's not that they thing they're getting a better deal.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
It's so nice of Japan to donate this code to us.
--
CEO,
Castle Technology UK
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
Compared to the investment IBM made (they claim ~1B$), or even Redhat (50M$), this most likely won't have a real impact (except for PR, of course)
The Raven
LOL... rotflmao! That's the coolest link I've seen in, like, a month!
Yo, I had no idea that folks were building wacked out stuff like that over there! What's up with the control seat?! It looks like a freakin back-hoe operator's chair! LOL.
Seriously, though... they need to port Mechwarior, and write device driver's for that thing! Put a couple of LCD moniters in there, a throttle control and joy-stick, maybe some foot pedals... Yo, if anybody want's to open a file on source-forge, and make a port of MechWarrior for Gundam-mech, there, count me in! =)
Mod the parent up! That's the coolest link on this thread!
Do a Google on Akihabara. Or if you're too lazy to do that, just imagine an entire city of computer stores. I was just there three weeks ago and there is MORE THAN ENOUGH sources for legitimate software, both Japanese, or English versions.
As far as illegal software, there is a great deal of street vendors who pawn that stuff off, but I've seen the same thing in New York. It may be a little bit worse in Japan due to the vast availablilty of high-speed broadband. And no, my use of high-speed and broadband is not redundant. I have a 12MBit ADSL line which usually averages 2.5 MBit, but on sites that can handle it, I've gone as high as 7.5MBit sustained. There are also regions that run 100MBit ethernet straight to your home. I only pay 2800yen (~$25) per month for my ADSL, which makes piracy quite cheap for me if I decided to go down that road to make an illegal yen or two.
Now, I have also been to Hong Kong, where after 5 days I had still not located a store that was actually selling legitimate copies of software. But there were more places than I could count pawning off the illegal copies.
I've dirtied my hands writing poetry, for the sake of seduction; that is, for the sake of a useful cause. --Dostoevsky
Business - AP World Business
Microsoft Buys Japan
Wed Feb 5, 03:53 PM PT
Microsoft plans to spend about 1 billion dollars (120 billion Yen) funding Japan in its entirety, says Bill Gates, Wednesday.
Gates' plans on purchasing the country at the end of fiscal 2004, but he's not sure what to do with it. Industry pundits predict that Japan will go the way of WebTV and many other companies/countries purchased by Microsoft.
"I like Japan", says Gates, "they really are good at science". Later, Gates was seen snickering.
If they spend the money directly then it wouldn't be that much. But since they are funding others who are developing open-source software, the effect is much greater.
I would expect that each group that worked on open-source developments would receive about 5-10% of their funding from the government. Or in other words, the funding is affecting development costing $4.5M.
This reduction in costs of 5-10% will give developers a great incentive to switch from other systems to Linux.
Now say that of the total spend, 50% comes from people who just migrated to Linux. So that is $2.2M that was being spent on other systems that is now being spent on Linux.
This $5M isn't being spent by government pen-pushers. It is $5M funding research and development by companies that are trying to be as cost-effective as possible. You can do a lot of programming for that much money.
$ ?? -??
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(shortened to apease the lameness filter)
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
Its a potentially brilliant move by the Japanese government. They get screwed by GATT if they subsidize product manufacture for export. Also, roughly 5-10 year ago, they had a really screwed up computer infrastructure (picture 5 types of PCs but all incompatible to each other) which they probably unified by going Microsoft.
Japanese makes major money from appliances and cars. They know that embedded programming to "smarten" up the products is the future. If the gov't gives the money to the keiretsus to invest in this direction, the US sends their lawyers to bitch that the Japanese manufacturers are "dumping" their Japanese gov't subsidized products.
Instead, they put the money into embedded linux development. It ends up being an infrastructure building investment. The car and appliances manufacturers then pluck the finished development and incorporate it into their products. Furthermore, by having a desktop linux, they end up "unifying" their PC products without the decisions being made in Redmond, USA.
Here's the kicker: their investment may not be poached by foreign competitors. Sure its GPL, and everyone has access to it. But perhaps they hope that Microsoft will supress adoption of Linux throughout the market. The investment is for the taking, but the Microsoft dominated markets can't use it. Its saves the Japanese industry all that software money that would be going to Microsoft for development infrastructure. It also results in cheaper products, because it doesn't have the Microsoft tax for each item. USG can't point to a gov't subsidy to support their claims of "dumping".
Too bad for the Japanese that their government is too corrupt to clean up their banking problem.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
Actually, its not really news that the Japanese government is doing this. They've been doing this for years - trying to get a globally accepted embedded device-control operating system widely adopted among the industry.
There used to be a project, headed up by one of Japans most respected computer scientists, called TRON.
This was pre-Hollywood "TRON" movie, which actually had some basis in its script and 'ideology' on the Japanese ideals put forth by the TRON project; which were, simply, to create a global networked computer 'system', accessible throughout the world, out of the embedded OS in consumer devices. In other words, put chips *everywhere* and have them all function as part of a global computer system.
I guess the end result would be so that the phrase "imagine a Beowulf of that!" could be applied to *anything*, in actual fact there would be nothing *but* Beowulf clusters of everything, and its name would be "TRON".
TRON was a project to try and define this OS and how these devices would communicate with each other - in 1978!!
(It may also be referred to as the "E-TRON" project, I seem to remember there being some move to change the name at one point...)
Anyway, just wanted to point out that the move of the Japanese government to promote OSS is probably based on an even older ethos among the Japanese techno/industrial zaibatsu's...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --